Childlike Innocence
by Charlie Yubari
Summary: A silly fluffy crossover fic. Twelve year old Nny meets a kindred spirit in Jonathan Teatime from Terry Pratchett's Hogfather. Cuteness and bonding of a somewhat sociopathic nature ensues.


The class was near-silent, full of the scratching of pencils and turning of pages. It was almost meditative - at least, as meditative as a room full of thirty 12-year-olds can get. Johnny liked it when it was like this. When they weren't speaking, he almost felt like he could stand his classmates.

They were supposed to be answering questions on the civil war, but Johnny felt ill at ease, so he was sketching. He was surrounded by kids he didn't know in a room he'd never been in before; but he was drawing, so it would be alright. That's how it worked.

He was so intent on his picture that he didn't notice the bell ringing until an unfamiliar voice spoke beside him.

"You're the new kid, right? What are you drawing?" The owner of the voice was a tall boy in a football sweater, with freckles and several goons. It was difficult not to dislike him on sight.

Johnny found that was true for most people.

"A monster," he replied, shortly.

"Oh," the boy said. Then, "I'm Johnny. Come outside, we'll let you throw a ball around with us." The boy glanced towards the desk where the teacher still lingered, and Johnny knew that she'd put him up to it. _Hypocritical jerk_. He didn't want to play football, but he found himself being bundled outside by the goons.

In the playground, IdiotJockJohnny sauntered around in a pathetic display of coolness, and Johnny found himself fighting the temptation to cave his head in with a nearby rock. Suddenly IdiotJockJohnny halted his mini-tour and pointed at a small blonde kid with a patch over one eye.

"Whatever you do, stay away from -him-," he said emphatically. "He's a complete freak."

"Really?" said Johnny.

"Oh yeah," said IdiotJockJohnny, smirking.

Decisively, Johnny turned his back on IdiotJockJohnny and stalked towards the blonde kid. He heard some shocked spluttering from the goons, but he didn't care. They could rot in hell.

The kid with the eye patch was walking tight rope-style on the back of one of the benches. As Johnny approached he leapt down, spun on his heel and greeted him with a huge grin. "Hi! What's -your- name?"

"Johnny," said Johnny, a little taken aback.

"Really? Another one? That makes four in our class. And my name is Jonathan, which is really quite similar."

Johnny groaned. This was even worse than his last school. "I don't want to be the fourth Johnny here," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to be associated with morons like -him-," he said, indicating IdiotJockJohnny.

"Ah," said Jonathan. "Well, you could always shorten your name. Or use your surname."

Johnny snorted. "To John? That's just as bad." He paused. "I suppose... I could do it the other way around. I could get people to call me Nny."

"Nny?" The blonde boy stopped to consider this, and Johnny - Nny, now - realised that he'd been in a state of perpetual motion throughout the conversation. He was like a huge ball of wound-up energy. Nny wondered how he managed to not explode during classes.

A thought occurred to him.

"What happened to your eye?"

"What happened to your hair?" retorted Jonathan. He was moving again - and still smiling.

"I dyed it," said Nny, feeling a little self-conscious.

"I was in a terrible accident. -And- my parents are dead."

"Um," said Nny. He wasn't quite sure what to say to this; it wasn't even clear if the two facts were related. "How did they die?"

Jonathan skipped forward a few paces. " -I- certainly don't know. They wouldn't tell me, you see. They said it might -disturb- me." He giggled. Nny smiled, and began to feel some kinship with the boy.

"Want to see my sketchbook?" he said, almost shyly. He was sure that Jonathan wouldn't be put off by the goriness of the pictures, like most people were. "I have to do these sketches," he explained, "to get them all out of my head. Then once it's gone I can paint properly. I'm going to be a famous artist one day," he said, proudly.

Jonathan examined the notebook with interest and occasional murmurs of "My, that looks painful" and "How -would- you build something like that, I wonder?" and "I expect in real life there would be rather more blood."

Suddenly he looked and stared intently at Nny with his good eye. The pupil seemed impossibly tiny. "I think you're quite right. I don't want to be a Jonathan any more." For a moment Nny was at a loss. When he realised what Jonathan was talking about, he felt almost disappointed. _If he starts calling himself Athan I'll be a trendsetter, and I hate trendsetters, and he'll just be another mindless sheep..._ "I should like to be called Teatime from now on. That's my second name, you see."

_Teh-ah-tim-eh? Weird name,_ thought Nny, before realising that he no longer had any right to call people out for calling themselves strange things. "Sure, why not?" Jonathan - Teatime - beamed at him.

"Why -did- you dye your hair blue?" Teatime asked suddenly. It occurred to Nny that perhaps staying on one subject was as difficult for him as staying in one position. He crossed his arms defensively.

"Why does it matter? That's the colour it is now, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it."

"Well, if you choose to make yourself look strange it's only reasonable to expect people to ask you about it," Teatime pointed out.

"-You- look strange," muttered Nny. For a moment Teatime's near-manic grin wavered, but it was back again before Nny noticed. "People usually think I'm strange anyway. I might as well give them a warning."

"I suppose that's sensible enough. Perhaps that's why I lost my eye. I'm getting a new one later this week, although of course it won't be real. I don't understand why they want it to -look- real when it isn't. That's almost lying, really, and I thought lying was supposed to be bad."

"What would you prefer?" asked Nny, with a sort of horrified fascination at the cheerful way Teatime discussed losing one of his eyes.

Teatime looked thoughtful. "I don't think I should like to keep the patch," he said. "That leads to all sorts of annoying comments about pirates. They put a small cap at the back of the socket to keep it from caving in, but really you ought to put something in there. Perhaps if it were blank, instead of having a silly pretend pupil and iris and so on..."

"You wouldn't mind looking strange?"

"I'm going to look strange no matter what," said Teatime, smiling serenely.

"Good point," said Nny. Neither boy pointed out that Teatime -was- strange; it was unnecessary. Nny found it refreshing. Most people were so stupid and shallow and petty that it made him angry. He tried to ignore it, but it was too horrible; the anger invaded his thoughts and his dreams until he either lashed out or drew - in great detail - what he'd do to those people if he could. It scared him, but at least it got it out of his system. And then he could paint. The only time he was ever truly calm these days was when he was painting.

He'd always have that, at least.

But Teatime... Nny smiled. It had been a while since he'd been able to have a proper conversation with someone. He liked it. _No,_ he thought, _I like -him-_. He smiled, a grin to rival Teatime's ever-present one.

_I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun together..._


End file.
